Father's Day: Sweet Potato Biscuit sandwich Day

I am sleepy. This has been a crazy day week. Eating out all the time is making me happy, excited, interested, interesting, less complainy...

... feel like a giant, bloated, nausous, yellow tick.

There I said it. Meh.

Fed up with food from restaurant kitchens, last weekend I dragged my housemate, L, up to PA to visit my Dad (code: Best Dad in the World. Seriously, I'm not bein hyperbolic, this guy rocks. Like for real move over Ozzy cuz your rock looks like smooth jazz compared to my dad) for Father's Day at my parent's compound. (Note: I was the only child there that weekend. That should definitely earn me Most Favored Child status.) My mom has been in AR for some time with my younger sister B and her husband E and their son J awaiting the birth of their daughter N. N is a true woman already, she wanted to make an entrance so she has kept us waiting for over a week. N and I already have a mind.meld.

No one really knows how Dad survives when Mom leaves. While he technically can cook put together sandwiches and fry eggs, Dad just...doesn't. Mom says he's like a lion (cue: awww), he will gorge on a meal and then not eat for days. I hear it works for him, but frankly that is just incomprehensible to me.

Since I had to be at a separate baby shower on Saturday afternoon, L and I weren't going up until late afternoon. Dad and I had the following convo:

Me: So we'll get there in time for dinner. I think L and I will bring up bison and we'll make bison burgers.
Dad: Why don't we just go to the tavern down the road and you can buy me a bison burger?
Me: Because I haven't cooked in forever, and I know I can make a better burger and meal than a tavern can.
Dad: No you don't. Besides, we don't need to cook.
Me: But Dad, I want to cook.
Dad: *sigh* Well...
Me: Ok Dad, it's your day, we'll go to the tavern.
Dad: Cool, I mean, I'm happy to let you cook, I just don't think you need to go to all that trouble.
Me: Well, we will make breakfast the next morning. We'll make biscuits, and gravy, and...
Dad: *interrupting* Whoa, whoa whoa whoa (that's 4. count 'em) Let's not go crazy.
Me: *laughing* What?? That's not crazy.
Dad: Look, if you wanna make a few eggs or whatever, that's fine, but we don't need to get all crazy or anything.

According to Mirriam-Webster on-line, "compromise" is defined as:
1a: settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions
  b: something intermediate between or blending qualities of two different things
2a: a concession to something derogatory or prejudicial <a compromise of principles>

For kids (i.e. I understand) it's:
 1: a settlement of a dispute by each party giving up demands
 2: a giving up to something that is wrong or degrading : surrender <a compromise of one's principles>
 3: the thing agreed upon as a result of a compromise.

Well missus Mirriam and mister Webster, I don't do surrender. So our weekend resulted in:

L and I taking Dad out to the tavern for burgers (ours was bison, his was beef), fries (ours were sweet potato his were "normal") and a salad from the tavern followed by fresh soft-serve at the local ice cream stand on Saturday night.

Monday morning, L and I made biscuits, sausage gravy, and eggs. BTW--here's a shortcut for your gravy: after crumbling and browning the sausage, add the flour directly. brown/cook. Then add the milk, salt, pepper. So much cleaner and quicker...

Dinner however, was where the magic happened. Here's how you make magic: Make sweet potato biscuits. When you pull them out of the oven, top with sharp cheddar cheese, black forest ham (or other smoked meat) and thin slices of granny smith apples. With some spicy mustard.

This is what magic looks like:

Now I know ya'll wanna have the sweet potato recipe, and I don't blame you. It's awesome. Problem is, I forgot mine so I used Paula Deen's. Which is pretty much mine only I use half butter and half shortening. And like triple her recipe size. You may wanna consider putting some fresh tarragon in your mix too, because that is awesome.sauce.

Seriously, it's one of the world's easiest meals to make. And tastes FANTASTIC. Try it!

The Reviews Continue...

To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach.  ~Havelock Ellis

L's kitchen is still being renovated. So we are still cruising around the local joints and I'm still writing yelp reviews. We're now at the point where eating out has lost its novelty and we talk about cooking at home and how I feel sick from all the processed food...like a giant bloated yellow tick. 

Some places we visit help alleviate the flavor distress, others expand the discomfort. 

For me, running is a daily act of worship--it's difficult to explain, but as Olympic champion and martyr Eric Liddel once stated, "when I run...I sense [God's] pleasure." I tend to just say, running is my way of "keeping the blood off the walls" (I'm prone to hyperbole). Eating out three meals a day, combined with a ripped contact and the wrong prescription glasses have taken its toll on my routine, my pace, my ambition.

In other words, my hunger. It's not that I'm satisfied, it's that now I feel sick all the time. I feel nauseous and tense. I broke down this morning, put my whole, albeit old left contact and my ripped right contact in and ran--the first real run since my 7 mile Sunday morning run. After 3.5 miles I almost puked, but I felt free.

Life is about choices; and the choices we make impact the way we live. Sometimes it's complex and complicated--such as relationships and "milestone" decisions. Other times, it's as simple as what we choose to eat.  What we feel we deserve to eat--healthy or otherwise, what we feel like we need to eat, and how those choices influence how we feel, how we act, is clear.

It's easy to think the convenient choice is the best choice. But sometimes, making a decision is like cooking--it takes a little time and consideration; and while it often feels final, it's really not, it's just a turning point.

Blog Fury!!

I really hate the format of my blog. I can't seem to figure out how to get it so it just spaces normally between paragraphs, how it has normal sized font instead of either being readable by ants or giants...I'm frustrated that I can't figure out how to illustrate it or put a photo on the banner or how to put them in my posts with wrap around text.

Ughhhhh...if this is how some people feel about the results they get from their food prep efforts, I think I can understand why they'd be frustrated...

Curing Life's Lemon-Toss...

"I had the best laid plans inside of America!" - The Cure

I wish I was techy enough to have a song play when you open this post. Not the entire site, but JUST this post. How awesome would that be??
Since I last wrote, I have:

• Had my car broken into/vandalized 5 times
• Moved...two blocks to the west
• Had two good friends move back to the States
• Lost my housemate to Cote d'Ivoire
• Gained a housemate who's also an old friend
• Grieved with three friends who unexpectedly lost loved ones
• Been on the world's worst date
• Celebrated my cousin's wedding
• Been looking forward to the imminent birth of my niece
• Started seriously trying to figure out what I wanna do when I grow up
• Started seriously considering growing up
• Gotten back into shape
• Eaten too much to stay in shape
• Started yelping and changed my twitter name

Perhaps most impactful on my life was being told a job opportunity I had been promised, had been told my application was 'merely a formality'...somehow...fell through. While I have been actively trying to cultivate some long-neglected elements of myself and my personality (focused writing, cooking, and food/drink education), this disappointment led me to throw myself wholeheartedly into a more intentional mental rifling of ideas, seeking insight from others, and finally, expression. When life hands out lemons, I prefer to cure them; after all, cured lemons are much more versatile than just lemonade.


Coupled with the kitchen and first floor renovations of the house in which I currently reside with my wonderful friend LD who graciously gave me squatters rights while I face the great unknown, I've been eating out a lot. Over a week, to be precise. With at least a week left to go. My newfound zeal has led me to begin writing reviews of the places I try on Yelp. After all, if I am going to eat, I should at least be writing about it. Check it out!


Another consideration I have been mulling over lately is whether to pursue culinary school or my sommelier's certification. Not Master of Wine (MW) cert, just the standard.  The reason being, with my palate and love for pairing flavors, a sommelier's cert could actually make me more relevant to food criticism and flavor profile creations. 


More to come! Check me out on Yelp!